What's it all about - Virtual Power Agents - Microsoft's approach to chatbots

Today, we discuss Virtual Power Agents, the relatively new chatbot UI from Microsoft. Making it easier to collaborate on chatbots that can be incredibly sophisticated, but also very accessible.  Oh and we talk about Sean and Steve's lobster shack... or argue about it!

Find out more about these and how they fit an organisation and how they talk to the rest of the Microsoft estate and enable full self service journeys.


To find out more about chatbots click here

Our latest series of podcasts, concentrates on voice and how that is going to impact the next few years with tips along the way. Find out more about voicebots here and if you have any subjects that you would like us to discuss then email info@disruptionworks.co.uk with the subject Podcast and we will see what we can do ;-)

Transcript

0:0:0.0 --> 0:0:5.690
 Sean Bussell
 And everyone and welcome to another exciting edition of disruption works chitchat with Sean and Steve. Steve, how y'all.

0:0:5.920 --> 0:0:9.200
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, good, very hot. Still hot.

0:0:13.780 --> 0:0:14.600
 Steve Tomkinson
 It's nuts.

0:0:7.700 --> 0:0:16.820
 Sean Bussell
 No, no, sorry. What? I'm putting the weather ban on this podcast. We're not talking about it. So yeah, if you gotta tell me how you're feeling, it's got nothing to do with the weather.

0:0:18.100 --> 0:0:21.50
 Steve Tomkinson
 That's crazy. I'm not. That's just melting over a.

0:0:23.470 --> 0:0:23.940
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah.

0:0:20.140 --> 0:0:27.260
 Sean Bussell
 The thought of it right send that rain up and send that rain this way. I'm ready for it. I'm gonna try chocolate dogs out in the rain.

0:0:29.320 --> 0:0:35.830
 Sean Bussell
 OK, alright, let's jump straight into it. So essentially for those that don't know.

0:0:36.510 --> 0:1:2.780
 Sean Bussell
 And this isn't a sales pitch disruption works. We are, we are essentially agnostic when it comes to chatbot platforms and a lot of the work that we've been picking up lately. As a matter of fact is to do with building bots in Microsoft BOT framework simply because large businesses want something big and clever out-of-the-box. Now, Steve, my question to you is because this is an ever evolving space.

0:1:3.610 --> 0:1:13.430
 Sean Bussell
 And you know Microsoft, they're at the forefront of that. Tell us what is new in the world of Microsoft Bot frameworks and that's happened the last few months.

0:1:14.60 --> 0:1:25.210
 Steve Tomkinson
 Well, last year I Microsoft announced their virtual power agents, which was one of the biggest moves that they've made in this in this area. And that's kind of their.

0:1:26.210 --> 0:1:56.420
 Steve Tomkinson
 You that that friendly UI into the into making a a chat bot. They'll be used to quite a few other vendors, small vendors doing nice UI, easy to use, kind of interfaces to make a chatbot through, but Microsoft have always been very unusual friendly. You know they weren't very. They went very intuitive, they were led more about developer level access only.

0:1:56.910 --> 0:1:57.300
 Sean Bussell
 You know.

0:1:56.900 --> 0:2:6.450
 Steve Tomkinson
 Umm and uh, which is very clever, very strong. But it was just a a little bit too technical for most people to get started on.

0:2:7.700 --> 0:2:15.270
 Steve Tomkinson
 So the big deal now is that we've got these virtual power agents Vpas that are.

0:2:15.390 --> 0:2:41.320
 Steve Tomkinson
 I'm really clever and integrated now. Parts of the the whole Microsoft estate, so you know if you're looking to start a chat bot off you can start very quickly and easily in there. But also you can be very sophisticated deep down as well. So it provides you a good top level interface to very technical solutions as well.

0:2:43.80 --> 0:2:59.670
 Sean Bussell
 So it does. The So does this move still mean that you need developer level skills to kick things off? But the BAU side of things, like the chatbot immunization can be done at a sort of no code level. What's the what's the thinking behind the move other than maybe broadening their horizons in terms of market share?

0:3:0.230 --> 0:3:26.80
 Steve Tomkinson
 Well, and yes they it it is a big deal as far as having kind of collaboration across teams. So one of the pushes that Microsoft are particularly talking about is fusion development. So that means that you have internal people in your business that are experts in their contents and they have their information architects if you like that can edit.

0:3:26.480 --> 0:3:57.250
 Steve Tomkinson
 I'm conversations they can formulate conversations and then you have the developer side who needs to do the integration work, the automation levels of the of the whole process. So they'll deal with self-service side, they'll integrate into your systems and services because it as it's Microsoft, it's totally open to integrating into anything you want it to be. It just needs a little bit of expertise to do that. But if you're trying to do a friendly.

0:3:57.360 --> 0:4:27.500
 Steve Tomkinson
 Interface for your customer, whether they're internal or external. Then you have this nice UI. Now that's really intuitive. It's really informative and it gives you a nice way into giving that. Like you said, business as usual editing do. You might do as you go along or prefer the phrasing of this or I want to target that I want to add a new topic to this conversation, those types of things can all be done, but still having all that expertise underneath.

0:4:41.990 --> 0:4:42.380
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah.

0:4:28.440 --> 0:4:43.890
 Sean Bussell
 OK, good stuff. And I guess in terms of the scale or size of business that might look at, I mean people might be listening to this guy and be a smaller business and think, oh, great, I'm going to just open up Microsoft and build a chat bot. Is it still? Is that a thing?

0:4:44.460 --> 0:4:49.250
 Steve Tomkinson
 Well, like they they the enterprise for the VPN's is.

0:4:52.750 --> 0:4:53.200
 Sean Bussell
 You know.

0:4:49.550 --> 0:4:55.10
 Steve Tomkinson
 Umm, it's a little bit pricey still at the moment. Whether they're gonna bring that down or not, I don't know.

0:4:55.620 --> 0:5:25.260
 Steve Tomkinson
 And Microsoft have always traded. Usually it's has a keep it cheap first and then you know, as people start using it, they they put prices up for added values and stuff like that. But they seem to be charging a reasonable amount for this at the moment and that their prices keep changing actually. So it's difficult to predict what's gonna be tomorrow, you know, really, really hard. And we've got people asking this. Oh, that's gonna be nice. Just going well, you know, I'm finding out because of the.

0:5:25.350 --> 0:5:55.640
 Steve Tomkinson
 They def fluctuations, but I would say that an SME for this or a small business probably isn't the right fit. But if you are serious about automating your processes and you are really gonna go for this integrated chatbot being part of your business in a proper agent in your business, yeah, then that this is a really good space because of the integration through automated flows.

0:5:55.720 --> 0:6:7.580
 Steve Tomkinson
 Into robotic process automation, all the pieces that Microsoft have been doing a lot of work, and they're now they're they're now in there for you to to start taking advantage of.

0:6:8.230 --> 0:6:12.820
 Sean Bussell
 And a how smart are these bots so they're leaning on the cognitive services that Microsoft offer?

0:6:37.460 --> 0:6:37.870
 Sean Bussell
 Aye.

0:6:13.190 --> 0:6:44.380
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, very much so. So a lot of that's built in and you can add other cognitive services in because you could just call on them. So things like the big knowledge based stuff we used to have things called Q&A bots and they're now gonna be depreciated and or deprecated in I think it's October of this year. So they've moved the whole thing to something called question answering as a more of a service rather than a product.

0:6:44.790 --> 0:7:12.10
 Steve Tomkinson
 And uh, that's a much nicer interface. It's a much bigger solution in its own right, with much more flexibility, but actually reasonably easy to pull into your power agent. So then you're actually using it within the same chat bot. It's going off and getting the knowledge base information, and the two are very much into lynx. And that is seeing question answering is seen as a whole cognitive service in its own right.

0:7:12.700 --> 0:7:21.890
 Sean Bussell
 OK. And for anyone, I guess new listening to this and thinking about Microsoft, but frameworks and chat bots, where can these Microsoft bots be deployed?

0:7:23.0 --> 0:7:54.590
 Steve Tomkinson
 Well, uh, you really are deploying them into Microsoft themselves, so it's a it's an Azure service, so you're always gonna be pulling Azure at some point. So all on cloud, but they can be deployed within your own tenants of course. So if you are already using Microsoft as a, you know all you're all Microsoft Office 365 or that's very much where you store everything, SharePoint, all the rest of that if that's in your business, then this is a good logical choice for that for the simple reason that you've then got a lot of ownership.

0:7:54.670 --> 0:8:25.0
 Steve Tomkinson
 Test as well as a security data protection. You're not reliant on a third party proprietary piece of software to be secure to be compliant to have all the the text that you need for your data protection audits and things like that. So this is already inside Microsoft, it's already inside your tenant, it's bomb proof stuff. So it's really, really good from that perspective. It's a very data and security.

0:8:25.70 --> 0:8:27.50
 Steve Tomkinson
 Sensitive. This is a very good space for it.

0:8:27.570 --> 0:8:32.830
 Sean Bussell
 And where can your customers go to either internal external go to speak to these chat bots?

0:8:53.770 --> 0:8:54.210
 Sean Bussell
 But.

0:8:33.230 --> 0:9:3.530
 Steve Tomkinson
 Well, pretty much anywhere you know. So any of the channels that you commonly find a chat button this you know these can be deployed. So websites obviously and obvious one currently working with people, they're doing them in SharePoint sites is it for internal audiences but also external it doesn't really matter, they can be deployed inside teams themselves. So it can be a chat bot within teams. So if you've got a massive internal audience that just wants to talk to the bot, they can talk to it within teams as you do chat to each other and.

0:9:3.670 --> 0:9:5.450
 Steve Tomkinson
 James, you know which is great.

0:9:4.450 --> 0:9:10.880
 Sean Bussell
 And there's that. Then provide a seamless handover to it, a human within teams. If you were to do that live chat.

0:9:10.240 --> 0:9:27.480
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, that's right. So the live chat handover is is within teams as well. So again it's, it's an environment that everybody's using. So you know here again you can, you can hand over within that set environment and chat to the person and there as well you know, so again, very good.

0:9:26.180 --> 0:9:33.930
 Sean Bussell
 So can we think of a quick example? Can we? Sorry. Can we think of a quick example for that? So maybe if I've got an IT issue is that use case?

0:9:33.570 --> 0:10:5.320
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah. So what we're doing at the moment is integrating into also third party applications, but part of the framework also has the option to do IT ticket support as well. And again doing that inside inside teams. So what somebody would have an access ask an expert type handover and they'd go you know try to we've got all the content about your laptop or whatever it might be and you can't get it resolved. So then you have to escalate it.

0:10:5.400 --> 0:10:28.290
 Steve Tomkinson
 And then that hand over is is handled within the the virtual power agent and then it goes out to wherever you want it to go so it can be a third party. If you've already got that end. Or it could equally be entertained. And it just raises a ticket and that ticket is then managed and handed and picked up by somebody you know. So it's it's then handed to that person and they take control of it.

0:10:28.850 --> 0:10:31.840
 Sean Bussell
 And you mentioned earlier in the chat about.

0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:35.870
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah.

0:10:33.520 --> 0:10:39.50
 Sean Bussell
 About process automation, just can you just tell us what what that is and what that means for for this?

0:10:39.410 --> 0:11:9.100
 Steve Tomkinson
 Well, I think this is probably one of the most powerful areas. UM, that that's that the the biggest advantage of doing the the virtual power agents is that they're they're part of the power automate family and power automate is Microsoft RPA platform. So that's their robotic process automation platform. So if anybody's familiar with UI path or automation anywhere.

0:11:9.350 --> 0:11:41.30
 Steve Tomkinson
 At those platforms are in competition with power automation, which is Microsoft's version. So that means that you can set-up what's called a flow, which is basically a process, and those flows inside there can be anything. So there can be pass information from A to B. They can be razor, a task over here in North Third party CRM service, whatever the process is, it can be done both ways in and out and it means you can have a full self-service journey.

0:11:41.120 --> 0:11:45.260
 Steve Tomkinson
 Within Microsoft, with whatever platforms you've already got.

0:11:46.360 --> 0:12:15.430
 Steve Tomkinson
 And you and you're away. You know it it and it's easy because it's very user orientated, especially for small amounts. The design and build you might need somebody that's a bit more technical in this area to do it, but actually it's all user interface stuff. So it gives you if you've got a bit of expertise in the business and you've got a little bit you want to take some ownership or autonomy, then you've got this kind of seamless journey through the lot and it does. It isn't that difficult to do.

0:12:16.350 --> 0:12:23.700
 Sean Bussell
 OK, good stuff. Now you spoke a lot there about chat and text. Is there A, is there a voice elements to this or not?

0:12:24.330 --> 0:12:29.560
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, there is. Umm, there's they're starting to bring their voice stuff into play.

0:12:30.40 --> 0:13:1.170
 Steve Tomkinson
 And Microsoft is trying to push voice pretty hard at the moment. I feel there's still got a little bit bit to go and they're not quite on it yet. Some of their voice and all use not quite there, so they're they. It's early days on that, although they have been pushing it hard. I don't think they're ready quite yet, not as we stand today to to do a proper voice integration. That's that we would consider a good quality one.

0:13:1.580 --> 0:13:2.70
 Sean Bussell
 Yeah.

0:13:1.380 --> 0:13:14.20
 Steve Tomkinson
 You know, we it's you're a little bit of a grey area there at the moment. I would say this is pretty much text at the sack and then then from there on in it will it will grow to be voice at some point.

0:13:14.390 --> 0:13:17.940
 Sean Bussell
 And who? Who do you think's leading the way in terms of voice?

0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:48.290
 Steve Tomkinson
 Well, the NLU, it's gotta be day. Uh, Google, they're they're by far the best for voice understanding. And so that natural language understanding elements from Google is an is amazing. You know they're really, really powerful. They have much more data than anybody else including the Amazons of this world. It's just that much bigger all the phones, everything that you do on your androids Google is is kind of mining that data to make sure they understand.

0:13:48.390 --> 0:13:50.110
 Steve Tomkinson
 What people are saying, you know?

0:13:50.30 --> 0:13:55.290
 Sean Bussell
 And and I guess that's why we harness the power of Google when delivering our own voice bot technology.

0:14:12.740 --> 0:14:13.270
 Sean Bussell
 Yeah.

0:13:55.80 --> 0:14:13.830
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, that's why that whole platform is is leveraging the NYU from Google. It's because it's just the most mature. You know we don't have to, we can be agnostic in that, but it at the moment Google provides the best results. So you wanna have the best outcome of all. You know why would you do anything else?

0:14:19.640 --> 0:14:20.870
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, I mean, look.

0:14:14.150 --> 0:14:21.20
 Sean Bussell
 Exactly and and as we take the best of breed approach that is that's the front runner, isn't it? So it would be difficult.

0:14:36.900 --> 0:14:38.190
 Sean Bussell
 If we don't hear about them.

0:14:21.930 --> 0:14:41.700
 Steve Tomkinson
 That there's lots of that, you know, as far as the the virtual power agencies, this from Microsoft and then and they are, you know, they're one of the big three in this area this far as I can see you know you've got IBM in the wingspread you know seem to forget about IBM somehow they don't have the same pill but that that solution is pretty good. You know it's pretty powerful.

0:14:41.860 --> 0:15:11.190
 Steve Tomkinson
 Time they're Googles obviously got its own one and a couple of options. They've got a nice easy entry one as well and and then a more technical one. When you get a little bit more involved. They're all about the same price points. So from a just an operational perspective, all those big players are about the same kind of operational price point. So when you're talking about big conversation numbers, you're talking about significant numbers.

0:15:11.780 --> 0:15:12.0
 Steve Tomkinson
 But.

0:15:12.730 --> 0:15:26.340
 Steve Tomkinson
 The way to, I think, justify and and look at the ROI on these is is really to to go well, OK. If I've got 40,000 requests coming in a month for X.

0:15:27.220 --> 0:15:32.210
 Steve Tomkinson
 Umm. Or, you know, across a range of subjects, how many people would have to to?

0:15:33.60 --> 0:16:5.390
 Steve Tomkinson
 To to have in the business to deal with those enquiries and the the joy of the big platforms is they're actually, if you invest and get it right, that agent is is a fully fledged agent. So it can do the whole process. You know there shouldn't be anything that that agent can't do for a logical process that doesn't need some sort of human intuition. And Even so, there's always going to be option of warm transferring over to a.

0:16:5.520 --> 0:16:11.900
 Steve Tomkinson
 To a human. And that's not a problem. But you know, if you're talking about 40,000.

0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:42.700
 Steve Tomkinson
 I processes or 42,000 sessions that are gonna have to be dealt with. That's a lot of sessions. I mean, how many people would that take? You know, you can't have diet two people looking after 40 sessions. You know, 40,000 sessions. That's just ridiculous, you know? So it's going to be a team. So then offsetting that price is easy because you just then it just blows them out of the water. You just can't for the price of, say, three people, you're getting an agent that does.

0:16:42.790 --> 0:16:46.850
 Steve Tomkinson
 That way you would probably need 10 to 15 people you know.

0:16:46.480 --> 0:16:54.310
 Sean Bussell
 Wow. It's gonna say. Yeah, if if you're gonna try and cover the 24/7 experience that the bot offers, you're gonna need it. You'll need a lot of people.

0:16:52.430 --> 0:17:22.360
 Steve Tomkinson
 Oh well, not if not. You know, I wasn't even thinking about that. I was thinking even just in hours it, you know it, and it doesn't matter. You just can't just can't get the you can't get the human hate ants anymore anyway, because it's hard to recruit. So it's a tough old world out there. So This is why this is such an important move by Microsoft to have something that's really sophisticated, really integrated into business and can be a properly full self-service.

0:17:22.630 --> 0:17:26.860
 Steve Tomkinson
 Agent, you know really, really powerful stuff connected to everything.

0:17:27.420 --> 0:17:33.320
 Sean Bussell
 Steve, do you think if people could have predicted the future, they could have predicted COVID? They could have predicted this.

0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:46.220
 Sean Bussell
 It's a struggle, let's say, to recruit staff. You know that the problems that people having at the moment to get the number of people in the business that they need to operate, do you think that they would already have done this chat bot?

0:17:47.100 --> 0:17:51.630
 Sean Bussell
 Idea years ago, where they were, they have took the jump in 2018.

0:17:50.580 --> 0:17:52.570
 Steve Tomkinson
 I I think they may have done it.

0:17:52.710 --> 0:18:21.940
 Steve Tomkinson
 And except for the technology wasn't quite there. So I think the problem is that the problem that we've had historically through this whole area, you know, he was taking voice back now kind of a couple of decades and people really wanted it to work and really wanted to invest in him. Some people put a lot of money in, but it was too early. They're technology wasn't there, but now the technology is. And I think if we privileged do predict.

0:18:22.650 --> 0:18:23.50
 Steve Tomkinson
 How?

0:18:23.430 --> 0:18:25.20
 Steve Tomkinson
 I kind of.

0:18:26.50 --> 0:18:29.680
 Steve Tomkinson
 Are a staff and a human resources has gone.

0:18:30.540 --> 0:19:1.90
 Steve Tomkinson
 We have to acknowledge the fact that this is always been the case. The fact that there's a developing country, we always have the problem of dealing with the staff that are the the the jobs that people don't want. Contact Centre particularly is just one of those jobs that people don't want and they don't want to be on the phones. They don't want to be on this kind of contact end where they have to deal with customers, really bright face to face or, you know, have the day. We don't want to be this first point of contact.

0:19:1.480 --> 0:19:11.20
 Steve Tomkinson
 They want to be the solution, not take their kind of the agro front end. If you like. You know, it's just it becomes a very stressful environment and people don't want to do it anymore.

0:19:18.270 --> 0:19:18.550
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah.

0:19:11.350 --> 0:19:25.990
 Sean Bussell
 I I think this is as a social thing as well, because typically if you like school, college leavers, you know they would, they would populate the contact centers. The problem is that messaging platforms are so huge that.

0:19:33.980 --> 0:19:34.210
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah.

0:19:26.930 --> 0:19:47.120
 Sean Bussell
 Quite often people just don't ring people like they used to. It's all done over text and messaging. There's a bit of, you know, there's a bit of that going on. So the chatbot plays into that space, but also the the idea of the contact center and using voice as as a communication channel. People are a bit like, well, I don't even ring my friends anymore. So I think there's a bit of that.

0:20:10.720 --> 0:20:11.220
 Sean Bussell
 Yeah.

0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:22.240
 Steve Tomkinson
 But it's because that no, there's no conversations going on. There's no calls going on. It's all taxed. You know, it's very, very little actual voice communication, unless they're face to face.

0:20:22.700 --> 0:20:27.390
 Sean Bussell
 So yeah, sitting in it, sitting in the contact centre is almost an uncomfortable experience.

0:20:28.220 --> 0:20:40.540
 Steve Tomkinson
 Barry, much so very much so because they don't have it, I I think it's a good life skill and it's something that, that that should happen with with the the old generation. But that's a completely different story whether you can get them there or not is another matter.

0:20:41.250 --> 0:20:41.720
 Sean Bussell
 Yeah.

0:20:41.100 --> 0:20:50.510
 Steve Tomkinson
 You know that that's the point, but we, you know, I think we're always against those things. They want bigger and better. They want more stuff, they want different, they want different.

0:21:2.400 --> 0:21:3.160
 Sean Bussell
 Yeah.

0:20:50.600 --> 0:21:8.350
 Steve Tomkinson
 And aspirations for themselves. So most will try and hit above that kind of. I don't want to do that job. I want to jump straight to the middle management job. You know something I wanna get to that level straight away. And that's where we are. That's where you can't go.

0:21:7.710 --> 0:21:14.190
 Sean Bussell
 OK, so let's say that me and you run Sean and Steve's lobster shack, and we've just, yeah.

0:21:12.500 --> 0:21:15.740
 Steve Tomkinson
 At that one again that one again we really need to open this up you know.

0:21:16.140 --> 0:21:27.350
 Sean Bussell
 We decided we needed Microsoft uh bot to help with us and integrate into our booking system and our auto management and all this funky stuff that we've got going on in our innovative lobster Shack.

0:21:28.430 --> 0:21:39.220
 Sean Bussell
 Realistically, where do people start from day one? Do they really just have to plot down what what their intentions are, what what the requirements are for jumping into this?

0:21:45.400 --> 0:21:48.10
 Sean Bussell
 It's very innovative global brand. I'll have you know.

0:21:40.440 --> 0:21:53.470
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, I'd say so. I mean, The thing is with the the Lobster Shack and the example is that is it? OK. OK. Are we online? Only. So there's no shack, actually, it's a virtual shack.

0:21:52.270 --> 0:22:1.920
 Sean Bussell
 No, this doesn't. There's no. There's no stuff, though, so you order at the table on the tablet the the there's a a wheelie bot that comes out with your food or on a tray.

0:22:2.370 --> 0:22:3.120
 Steve Tomkinson
 A wheelie bot.

0:22:3.880 --> 0:22:4.820
 Sean Bussell
 That's fun, yeah.

0:22:3.850 --> 0:22:6.410
 Steve Tomkinson
 So we need to patient that a really bot.

0:22:6.750 --> 0:22:17.670
 Sean Bussell
 That's something that, you know, those little it would be like a alright, it's it's it's, it's a drone. It's a drone that brings different and if it spills the gravy or whatever on people that's you know that's on them.

0:22:17.50 --> 0:22:18.460
 Steve Tomkinson
 Part of the experience.

0:22:18.670 --> 0:22:24.780
 Sean Bussell
 That's not the experience. Yeah. Complaints, you know? No accepted anyway.

0:22:23.950 --> 0:22:28.980
 Steve Tomkinson
 OK, alright. Well yes, I I would say you need to plan that a lot, but.

0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:43.840
 Steve Tomkinson
 But like I I suppose The thing is if it if you do need something digital. Yeah, of course. You gotta plan it out. And. And this the agents have to be part of this major plan, you know, and you've gotta consider them as as a member of staff. That's the only way.

0:22:44.620 --> 0:22:46.530
 Steve Tomkinson
 The only way I and and.

0:22:47.320 --> 0:23:10.290
 Steve Tomkinson
 If you really are going to go to town with it, then automating through that process is is gonna take a lot of pain even early because it'll hone in what your processes are as well. So the plan becomes a real plan of this process goes here rather than doing a lot of ad hoc stuff to start off with so very much so you know.

0:23:10.900 --> 0:23:15.610
 Sean Bussell
 And it I assume it's always a phased roll out with this stuff, you don't start at the end.

0:23:16.530 --> 0:23:46.380
 Steve Tomkinson
 No, it just gets far along as you can you know from your first go. But you've gotta get something out of life. I mean, The thing is we're chat, voice and all that sort of stuff is that we always find out that there's something we've missed because you can't predict every bit of conversation. And what happens is the miss stuff is really important because that informs your next steps. So one thing that I hadn't mentioned really about the virtual power agents is that their analytics are amazing. You know, they've got built in cstat scores.

0:23:46.480 --> 0:24:16.970
 Steve Tomkinson
 Uh, say SAT scores, you know, customer satisfaction scores and you know, resolution tracking built-in. They've got all the information you want about handled and unhandled requests. So then you can build a business case to go. We're having loads of people asking us for this and we haven't got the content for it or we haven't got a process for it. They wanna actually self-service. Why aren't we automating it? They're happy to do it. So why don't we do it? And all of a sudden you've just saved yourself a ton of money.

0:24:17.60 --> 0:24:49.240
 Steve Tomkinson
 By not having to get somebody to do that, you know, which is madness cause most people are unhappy doing it out. All the automations that we've done most well or in fact without fail, every single person that we've engaged, including the members of staff and the business, are so happy that they don't have to do the mundane process that they've been doing for weeks and months because it just drives them insane. And they because everybody's on depression, everybody's got too many jobs to do.

0:24:49.510 --> 0:24:51.60
 Steve Tomkinson
 And that's taken all those jobs away.

0:24:52.0 --> 0:24:52.360
 Steve Tomkinson
 You know.

0:24:53.40 --> 0:24:53.970
 Steve Tomkinson
 Mikes out difference.

0:24:51.920 --> 0:24:58.10
 Sean Bussell
 Yeah, surely no one really wants to sit there doing something repetitive and boring. Surely not.

0:25:13.740 --> 0:25:14.140
 Sean Bussell
 Well.

0:24:57.160 --> 0:25:14.430
 Steve Tomkinson
 No, no, nobody does. Nobody wants to do it. And then of course that's then staff retention, even if you're not saving that particular body. But you can scale without having to get somebody else sat in the same seat as well. So you don't need another four people in there just doing this thing, you know, unhappily.

0:25:14.790 --> 0:25:18.300
 Sean Bussell
 Just. Yeah, you give them something of of higher value to.

0:25:19.0 --> 0:25:20.30
 Sean Bussell
 Said Cracknell with.

0:25:23.890 --> 0:25:24.460
 Sean Bussell
 Yeah.

0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:25.390
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah, something more interesting. They'll they'll do it and they'll be much more productive. Their whole thing works, you know, it's just it's it's the right way to go.

0:25:35.860 --> 0:25:36.130
 Steve Tomkinson
 Yeah.

0:25:25.750 --> 0:25:37.900
 Sean Bussell
 Good stuff. Alright, let's call it there as ever. Uh, hope you enjoyed that one. And if there's anything that you like us to discuss, please drop us a note. We've only happy to have a look at it. See if it's if we can speak.

0:25:41.980 --> 0:25:44.370
 Sean Bussell
 We really bought pattern pending nice.

0:25:36.810 --> 0:25:49.110
 Steve Tomkinson
 Any ideas about the lobster Shack would be interesting, you know? Uh wheelie, bots. We've been obviously talking about, but you know this, this Skype, the limit with it, I think you know providing its lobster orientated you know.

0:25:48.710 --> 0:25:54.560
 Sean Bussell
 They fade is a very popular business choice these days because you know, yeah. So there you go.

0:25:57.210 --> 0:26:1.380
 Sean Bussell
 Nice after this, it's a lobster shack. OK, this is.

0:26:2.860 --> 0:26:3.740
 Sean Bussell
 Not so shy.

0:25:52.40 --> 0:26:5.310
 Steve Tomkinson
 Is it? Yeah. Right. OK, so lobsters ahoy. Ohh. That's another name for it. Lobsters. Ahoy. No, no, no. Ah, God. Well, we'll argue about that offline. Like what?

0:26:4.440 --> 0:26:16.820
 Sean Bussell
 Table ordering wheely bots. You know there's no more waiting. Try and catch the eye of the waiter. You press the button on the the the table. Then you're really bot comes over. You know, gets your drinks. You don't. Yeah.

0:26:15.630 --> 0:26:17.700
 Steve Tomkinson
 Is that right or pops out the table?

0:26:18.500 --> 0:26:21.490
 Steve Tomkinson
 There's it's all underground. Everything's been delivered from underground.

0:26:20.190 --> 0:26:22.580
 Sean Bussell
 Night. Come out. You get you getting silly now.

0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:28.570
 Steve Tomkinson
 Ohh God.

0:26:27.820 --> 0:26:31.950
 Sean Bussell
 But thanks everyone. Catch you on the next one. Cheers. Bye bye bye.